U.S. IMPERIALISM AND JAPANESE REACTIONARIES Stepped-Up Military Collaboration

Japanese Foreign Minister Kiichi Aichi was in Washington between June 2 and 5. He had talks with U.S.President Nixon and Secretary of State Rogers on the questions of the bases on Okinawa and the Japan-U.S. "security treaty." Aichi's U.S. visit came at a time when the Japanese people's struggle for the recovery of Okinawa, the abrogation of the Japan-U.S. "security treaty" and against U.S.-Japanese military collusion had reached a new high. To bamboozle the Japanese people, Aichi resorted to the counterrevolutionary dual tactics of carrying out stealthy military collaboration under the signboard of "settling the Okinawa question." During Aichi's talks with Nixon, Rogers, and Defence Secretary Laird, the latter again and again stressed the strategic importance of the bases on Okinawa to U.S. imperialist aggression in Asia. Rogers told Aichi that the statement about Nixon's decision to "remove U.S. nuclear weapons" after drafting plans to "return" Okinawa "was not accurate." Laird put it more bluntly when he said that both the United States and Japan "must consolidate the defence line centering on Okinawa," which is aimed at the Chinese and other Asian peoples. Aichi promptly danced attendance upon his U.S. master, saying that "the Japanese side is confident that a formula can be worked out which will not damage the function of the bases when Okinawa's reversion is realized." This proved that the United States will never give up its nuclear bases on Okinawa and the Japanese reactionaries do not really want to get Okinawa back. The Sato government's "demand" that the United States "return" administrative power on Okinawa to Japan in 1972 is only a trick of the U.S. and Japanese reactionaries to deceive the Japanese people. The real aim of the latest Japan-U.S. talks is to work out new and closer military collaboration, hatch anti-China plots and plan aggression in Asia. Aichi has bowed to his U.S. master's fiat for a speed-up in Japanese arms expansion. Speaking for the reactionary Sato government, he also officially informed Nixon during the talks that Japan completely accepted the U.S. demand for an automatic extension of the Japan-U.S. "security treaty" when it expires in 1970. He has done this despite mounting opposition from people of all strata in Japan. This is another grave step in Japanese-U.S. military collaboration. Aichi's visit to the United States has bound Japan still more tightly to the U.S. war chariot and made it even more a tool of U.S. aggression in Asia. This will only spur the Japanese people to launch a still more vigorous struggle against U.S. imperialism. The U.S. and Japanese reactionaries can expect still harder times ahead.